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Photowalk to Lepakshi – (BPW Report)

BPW was started exactly a year ago by Priya and over the year, a lot of interesting photo walks has happened. For the first time ever, BPW Group set out for a photowalk outside Bangalore. On 11th July, the group planned to go to Veerabhadra temple, located in Lepakshi, a small village which is about 15kms east of Hindupur in Anantapur district of Andra Pradesh. It is nearly 120kms from Bangalore.

Well, before I continue, Happy 1st Anniversary to BPW

14 of us turned up for the photowalk that morning. We had decided to take the Guntur Passenger train starting from Yeshwantpur Railway Station and get down at Hindupur and then take a bus/auto to Lepakshi. The train started at 8:10am and as it slowly increased its pace, our adventurous journey also started. Few of them put their fingers to work (started to click) while few opened their huge lenses (scaring people around them 😛 ) and few of our stomachs, started to grumble for breakfast. Including me 😀

Beggers, chai wallahs, idly-wada wallahs, madur-wade wallahs, passed by, as we tried to ignore their uniquely weird tones each one was blessed with. Sheesh! I literally took my iPod out, raised the volume to MAX, yet those tones made it in to my ears. I couldn’t help it anymore. We reached Hindupur a 10:40am and decided to break our fast before we headed to Lepakshi. After a lot of searching, we finally found one small hotel. Masala Dosa, Idly and Vegetable Pulao (the raita was stale ) awaited us.

We were done with our breakfast and now, our next challenge was to travel 15kms to Lepakshi. It was a very hot, sunny Sunday and travelling in a crowded bus was merely impossible. SRK of our group, Natesh (check out his DP on Flickr to know why we call him SRK), blew a powerful whistle at a Matador asking the driver to stop it and the driver did stop it. After all it was SRK’s whistle 😉 The driver said that he would drop us to Lepaskshi by charging 6 bucks per person. Hell! We wouldn’t mind if we had paid 10 bucks also, coz it was thousand times better than boarding a bus. The ride was shaky, bumpy and best of all, fun 😀

We reached Lepakshi in about 25mins. We left our footwear at the entrance and walked inside. The temple was huge and what we learned was the most interesting part of the temple – The pillars inside the temple were originally hanging before the British came over and filled it with cement as they thought the temple might collapse. Like, they had the most brilliant brains on earth 😐
It is said that, a British engineer wanted to learn how the temple was supported by pillars and hence tried to move one of the pillars. It caused some movement and hence you can notice a crack on the ceiling near that particular pillar. The temple had such brilliant architecture, that it could withstand even an earthquake. No wonder, that moron Britisher tried to move and explore it.

All of scattered inside and started clicking. After spending 2.5hrs inside the temple, we decided to take a group photo and a small break before we proceeded towards Nandi. Meantime, Arvind (who is now the official Director of BPW 😛 ) showed us some of his brilliant stop-motion skills. After the break, we walked out of the temple and boosted up our energies by having some yummy cucumbers and ice-cream, though it wasn’t sufficient enough.

We headed to Nandi which is just 200 meters away from the temple. Nandi is yet another master piece that is made out of a single granite stone. We were pretty tired and had absolutely no strength. So, after spending only a few minutes at Nandi, we walked back and decided to go back to the railway station by auto. We were told that there’s a train at 3:15pm, but we realized that we were misguided and the next train was only at 6pm when enquired at the station. Hence, we decided to board a bus and headed towards the bus stand in the same auto. We were lucky enough as we got a KSRTC bus heading to Bangalore immediately. Exhausted, we reached Majestic Bus Stand by 6pm and bidding adieu, all of us headed back home.

Overall, the photowalk was fun, exciting, not to forget the bumpy ride and a great experience. You can view our all our pics here – BPW Group Pool

It was one of the most memorable experiences for me. I liked every bit of it. From the train journey to the metador and open auto ride. The temple was huge and beautiful too. I’m really so happy that I got to know such wonderful folks through BPW. The photographs from the walks have been some of the bests. Hope we continue at a steady pace with more informative & helpful walks. Thanks for the report

http://twitter.com/joelfernandes Joel

@Prashant @Veeresh @Priya Thank you It was indeed a memorable one.

ouTOFfocuS

nice report my friend..

i’d great time with you ppl..
thanks to Veeresh, long back he told me about this young group BPW,
and Sat day night he told me about this trip..
A wonderful trip…..